Extraordinary news reaches me about Tesco’s behaviour. Celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley–Whittingstall submitted a resolution for debate at Tesco plc’s AGM was submitted with the support of 102 shareholders (representing something like 3.7 million ordinary shares). It is a resolution that challenges what Tesco says about its poultry welfare and urges them to set new minimum standards like lower stock densities and more environmental stimuli for the birds.

Unbelievably – Tesco have said that they will only take the resolution to the AGM if the person submitting the motion meets the cost of distributing the relevant papers to their shareholders. They are entitled to waive this fee, and the backers of the motion have requested that they do so, in the interest of shareholder democracy, but they have declined.

In other words, the resolution is dead in the water unless the proposers pay them £86,888 to print and post the papers out to all 269,000 Tesco shareholders.

So Tesco – as far as I can see you treat your shareholders just about as well as you treat your poultry!

More information – and the option to donate to help cover the costs – on Hugh Fearnley–Whittingstall’s website.

The BBC story pretty much says it all:

Scotland’s top prosecutor has said the case has not been made for extending the length of time terror suspects can be detained without charge to 42 days.

BBC Scotland has learnt that Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini gave her opinion in a letter to the Liberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael.

She said the change from the current 28 days was not supported by “prosecution experience to date”.

Saw the protesters on Harriet Harman’s house – Fathers for Justice. Actually think it is completely unacceptable to go to any public elected person’s house and carry out protest. By all means protest outside the House of Commons or elsewhere – but intimidating anyone in their own home is wrong – plain wrong. Having a reasonable amount of sympathy for their cause – this type of bullying and intimidation just turns me off. I will still fight for justice for fathers (and mothers) but I condemn this organisation for their action.

Reading Liberal Conspiracy, I see that Iris Robinson (MP in Northern Ireland and also member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, where she chairs the Health Committee) has recommended that people assaulted for being gay should seek medical help to “cure” them of being gay.

Back to the ark we go! I thought we had come a long, long way on the road to equality – and leaving behind the nonsense that being gay is a disease which people should be cured of. But remarks like this remind us that we’ve not got all the way there yet!

You really have to file this in the “you couldn’t make it up” category – Haringey’s binmen are being told in the name of health and safety to remove their cuddly toy mascots from their vans in case a child rushes out into the street to grab them.

I mean – really! Not only is the sight of hordes of children running into the street to grab cuddly toys from the front of vehicles one scourge we’ve not been subjected to, but this is just the sort of misplaced small-minded pettiness that gives health and safety (both of which are pretty good objectives to have!) a bad name. If binmen like to have a bit of fun and liven up their vehicles with a cuddly toy – good for them.

Even more depressing is the narrow-minded attitude of the binmen firm’s general manager, Doug Taylor, who wrote: “‘Quite why adults would wish to decorate their vehicles this way is frankly beyond me.” Well in my experience it’s far from rare to see adults in vehicles with small cuddly toys somewhere in or around the vehicle – but even if you personally don’t see the attraction of a cuddly toy to brighten up a vehicle, surely we aren’t such a narrow-minded society that we can’t appreciate that other people might?

Anyways – as I told the Daily Mail, you have got to laugh. Haringey’s streets are among the dirtiest in London. I wish the council would concentrate on improving its services rather than worrying about teddy bears.

Sky had me back on this week going through some of the stories that are hot on the web. If you missed it, you can still watch the piece courtesy of their archive – and watch out for the special Sky snail graphics near the end!

Bloody Tories! Talked out a Private Members’ Bill in Parliament to lower the voting age to 16. This practise of talking out a Bill and not allowing a vote has got to go. If you’re against something – then make you can and vote against it. But the practice of just talking and talking until time runs out means you can block something – without the names of you and your colleagues appearing in black and white as having voted against.

Just once or twice trying to keep talking to keep a measure at bay can be a heroic attempt to argue your corner – and such cases are usually heavily publicised so there’s nothing sneaky about that – but the sort of talking out of bills we had today just shows how awful Parliament’s rules are – once again.

But to the point – the Tories and the Government were against the Bill. The Bill was Julie Morgan’s Private Members’ Bill (Labour) and although a lot of people support this – it is very, very difficult to get enough MPs to such a debate on a Friday to make it go through. No – not because MPs are slacking off, but because MPs generally have a heavy workload of commitments in their constituencies and so – particularly if their seat is some way from London – on a Friday they head off to them for a weekend of work there.

I made brilliant points (I thought!) and the Tories made specious ones – their key argument (a rubbish one in my view) being that if you lower it to 16 why not 14? Bleeding obvious – 16 begins the journey to adulthood which is full on in law by 18. We are simply debating what comes where on that scale. If you can legally marry and have a child (and sex and lots of other things) then in my view 16 is OK for voting. Tories kept saying but alcohol and cigarettes are 18. Yes – but when did anyone (at least in this country) die from voting? Clearly Tories don’t believe competence to vote begins at 16. Anyway – this one will come back again and again until one day…

As a footnote: to give credit where credit’s due, normally MPs have to bob up and down after each speaker in order to get called themselves in a debate, but when I explained to the Speaker’s office that my back was still playing up and giving pain, I was able to get to speak without having to bob up and down. So thank you!

Woke up this morning pretty much unable to move. Back out. Onset of old age perhaps! Had to cancel all arrangements and go to osteopath. Tapped away at computer a bit during day, but hoping will be able to move around again properly tomorrow.